You’re not helping, guys. [YouTube]

There’s schadenfreude aplenty in this week’s “Snide Remarks.” It’s called “The Feeling Is Mutual,” and it’s about the collapse of Washington Mutual and why I, as a long-time customer, am delighted by it. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bank!

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“Worst Week” (Mondays, CBS): I laughed a lot at the pilot episode of this fast-paced sitcom, and I was impressed by its enthusiastic embracing of farce and slapstick. It’s a single-camera show (i.e., no studio audience) about a hapless man named Sam who meets, and consistently screws up in front of, his fiancee’s parents. Yes, it’s like “Meet the Parents” — except that unlike Greg Focker, Sam is a likable underdog whose eagerness to please is endearing, not annoying. So many sitcoms are ultimately about guys being screw-ups, so it’s nice to see one that admits up front that that’s all it’s about, and then runs with it. The pilot involved many delightful elements of farce (miscommunication, people presumed dead who are not dead, etc.), and while I got squirmy a few times when I realized how bad things were about to get for Sam, I soon started seeing that as one of the show’s virtues: It’s a hilarious story about a perpetual trainwreck, and thank goodness it’s happening to someone else and not me.

“Gary Unmarried” (Wednesdays, CBS): … And now, after that refreshing bit of humor, we’re back to the same old boring thing. “Gary Unmarried” stars Jay Mohr as a newly divorced housepainter sharing custody of his two children with his ex-wife (who’s now dating their marriage counselor, haw haw!). It’s another bumbling-dad/horny-men/sass-mouthed-teenagers/bitter-ex-wife TV show, and it stands apart from the thousand similar shows in no discernible way. I chuckled a couple times during the pilot — not enough to watch the show again.

Busy week! Good heavens! So many movies!

“Miracle at St. Anna,” Spike Lee’s World War II epic about four black soldiers behind enemy lines in Italy, is the one that I think is the best of the new releases, though I note that I am in the distinct minority in liking it at all. I’m curious to read the other critics’ reviews and see what it is they found so disagreeable, because I quite enjoyed it.

“Nights in Rodanthe,” reviewed at Film.com, is based on a book by Nicholas Sparks, and … I’m guessing I can probably stop there.

“Eagle Eye”! Shia LaBeouf! Paranoid techno-thriller! Meh!

“Choke” is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (”Fight Club”), and while it’s not as good as a movie based on a Palahniuk novel ought to be, it’s not bad. Sam Rockwell helps a lot a the main character, a sex-addicted colonial-village re-enactor.

“The Duchess” stars Keira Knightley, and it’s — get this — a period piece! I know! Weird! Also: meh!

“The Lucky Ones” treats Iraq veterans’ problems like sitcom-y jokes, and not very funny jokes anyway. My review is at Cinematical.

“Battle in Seattle,” also at Cinematical, is a fictionalized account of the World Trade Organization riots that took place in Seattle in 1999. It’s an “issue” movie where they never actually explain what the issues are, which is kind of a serious liability.

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Ease on down to Film.com for this week’s edition of Eric’s Bad Movies, featuring “The Wiz,” a terrible screen adaptation of what was apparently a fine Broadway musical. The movie exemplifies Hollywood logic: “This worked really well on stage! So when we make the movie, let’s change everything about it!”

Michael Jackson appears in this film, and I think I am to be commended for writing about it without making a single joke about child molestation. This is especially remarkable when you consider how funny child molestation is.

The clues I gave last week were that the film was the oldest I’d covered so far in Eric’s Bad Movies (i.e., older than 1981), and that “some of its actors were Grammy-winning singers. The film was a remake.” The three major guesses were “The Wiz,” “A Star Is Born,” and “The Jazz Singer.” (Well, someone said “Cannonball Run,” too, but I don’t know what they thought that was a remake of.) “The Jazz Singer” wouldn’t have qualified because only one of its actors (not “some”) was a Grammy winner. “A Star Is Born,” with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, was a reasonable guess, though. In “The Wiz,” Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and Lena Horne are all Grammy winners (and Richard Pryor, too, though for a comedy album, not singing).

There is some uncertainty over what next week’s movie will be, but I believe it will be this one: a horror film from the 1990s starring someone who would go on to star in a popular, long-running TV show.

About a dozen alert readers sent me links today to this news item from PETA, in which the animal-rights terrorist group encourages Ben & Jerry’s to replace the cow’s milk in their ice cream with human milk.

PETA got the idea from the recent announcement that a Swedish restaurant was going to start using human milk, bought from willing female humans, in some of its recipes.

PETA’s logic, of course, is, “Hey, we here at PETA sure would like some attention!” Secondarily, PETA’s logic is that dairy cows endure a lot of hardship. Thirdly, PETA figures that human milk is probably healthier for humans than cow’s milk is, although let’s be honest, even if human milk were poisonous PETA would still encourage its use as long as it saved the life of an animal.

One of the people who sent me the story said she’d heard a radio crew coming up with names for Ben & Jerry’s flavors using milk from human female ladies. (Ben and Jerry aren’t actually considering doing this, of course.) The new flavors would have to be named after famous women. The favorite was Caramel Electra. I submit the following:

Gov. Sarah Praline
Mocha Winfrey
Cherry Stuart Masterson
Jennifer Love Nougat
Cocoa Chanel
Elizabeth Barrett Brownie
Lemony Dickinson
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Molasses

If you felt the world rocking yesterday afternoon, it’s probably because of this:

(If you’re wondering how he has a son, it was through in vitro fertilization, and the mother is Clay’s friend Jaymes Foster, who is a woman despite being named Jaymes.)

Yes, Clay Aiken has officially come out of the closet, triggering the expected “well, no duh” jokes. Most observers, and plenty of his fans, have strongly suspected it for a long time. What’s newsworthy (relatively speaking) is that he’s finally settled the matter once and for all and ended the speculation. Apparently, within the Claymate community there has been much debate over his sexuality, with one camp insisting he’s straight while the other camp says, “Um, really? Have you seen him?” Now the issue is resolved, and Clay’s fans can move on to more important topics, whatever those might be.

Let’s talk about those fans, shall we? I attended a performance of “Spamalot” on Broadway back in May when Clay was a cast member. Though it was obviously nothing more than a casting stunt designed to sell tickets, Clay acquitted himself rather well. He’s a good singer, of course, and he showed something resembling comic timing, and he was game to do all the goofy stuff the production required of him.

His fans, on the other hand, all behaved like idiots.

The Claymates comprised about one-third of the audience. They showed their devotion to their idol by screaming and cheering every time he did the following:

• Anything.

I mean this literally. Walking onstage always got a reaction. Uttering a line — especially a punchline — drew sustained clapping and yelling. If he did anything physical, especially anything resembling dancing, and especially if it involved turning around to show his backside to the audience, it prompted a tsunami of shrill ululation. In the second act, when he sang a solo number — a good, upbeat song, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Broadway show — he got a STANDING OVATION. In the middle of the show. For a run-of-the-mill song.

Continue reading…

A few random thoughts concerning my experience at the Toronto International Film Festival are cobbled together into this week’s edition of “Snide Remarks,” entitled “Oh, Yeah. Canada.” “Oh, Yeah. Canada” is what I envision the original intent of the national anthem “O Canada” to have been.

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Here is your weekly shipment of reviewage!

“Ghost Town” is a pretty funny comedy in which Ricky Gervais sees, and is annoyed by, dead people. (My review is at Cinematical.) Of course, if you don’t think Ricky Gervais is funny, you probably won’t care for the film. Then again, if you don’t think Ricky Gervais is funny, then what’s wrong with you?

“Lakeview Terrace” has Samuel L. Jackson, which is always a good thing, but it’s still just a generic thriller about a cop harassing his neighbors. My review is at Film.com.

“Igor” (an animated film about a mad scientist’s hunchbacked assistant) and “My Best Friend’s Girl” (in which Dane Cook summons all his acting skills to play a douchebag) are two of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets™. (”Igor” was apparently screened in some cities but not in others.) I’ll definitely have a review of “My Best Friend’s Girl” for Cinematical at some point this weekend.

Then there’s “Towelhead,” in limited release, an uncomfortable and controversial — but funny — film about a 13-year-old Arab-American girl living in Texas during the first Gulf War. It was written and directed by Alan Ball, writer of “American Beauty” and “Six Feet Under,” and it has the same kind of suburban-treachery vibe.

We’ve switched to a new feed for the podcast, but I think existing subscribers will be redirected automatically, so it shouldn’t affect your smooth podcast-listening enjoyment. I forgot to double-check with Jeff that everything was all set before it got late and he went offline. I wouldn’t be surprised if he barges into this post and inserts an update, though.

[JEFF'S FORESHADOWED UPDATE: As of this minute, the old feed is now being redirected to http://feeds.ericdsnider.com/InTheDarkPodcast, and the old "Snide Remarks" podcast feed is being redirected to http://feeds.ericdsnider.com/SnideRemarksPodcast. These are both aliases for the same URLs at feedburner.com, but it gives us control to later move to a different service without having to go through this same craziness. So anyway, your pre-existing iTunes subscriptions, etc., should all redirect immediately; if you have any issues, please email me directly at webmaster (at) the domain you're looking at right now.]

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As someone immediately guessed last week, today’s edition of Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com features “Mac and Me,” an extended McDonald’s/Coke/Skittles commercial from 1988. My devoted editor has gone to the trouble of adding YouTube clips of the movie’s two high points — boy in wheelchair falls off cliff; alien in teddy bear costume dances at McDonald’s — and I highly recommend them to you.

This is Eric’s Bad Movies #25, by the way. Can you believe it’s been almost six months since we started? Seems like only yesterday.

As for next week: I’m not 100 percent sure yet, but if I go with the title I’m thinking of, it will be the oldest film yet covered in Eric’s Bad Movies. (Here are the archives for reference.) Some of its actors were Grammy-winning singers. The film was a remake.